Provider fined for suppressing alternative Wi-Fi points for Internet access

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC ) sued the Internet provider Smart City Holdings $ 750,000 for the fact that the provider blocked private wi-fi spots in the coverage area of ​​its services during various conferences and conventions where the company provided its services for communication.

To encourage people to pay the company $ 80 a day for using the Internet, the provider blocked all the wi-fi points that visitors tried to create on their own, bypassing the Internet from Smart City Holdings. People who had a good wireless Internet access opened their access points for everyone - but this did not fit into the plans of the provider.

In response to a request from the FCC, the company explained that its equipment “automatically transmitted de-authentication frames in order to prevent the possibility of establishing a connection outside the Smart City network for those devices whose signal level exceeded that of the provider’s equipment”. A representative of Smart City Holdings, Mark Haley, confirmed that his company in the past had really used equipment to block other people's Wi-Fi spots.
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This is not the first case of intervention by the Federal Communications Commission in the work of providers in this regard. In October last year, Marriott Hotel Services was fined $ 600,000 and was accused of blocking personal Wi-Fi points at a conference in Nashville. After that, in January 2015, the FCC issued an unambiguous instruction for providers, indicating that Wi-Fi blocking is prohibited.